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unlikely-allies · 5 years

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***Spoilers*** (I tried to avoid any major spoilers, but there are a few lesser spoilers in the summary portion)

5/5

Ravka has maintained an almost-peace for three years. But this is Ravka, and chaos is always on the horizon. Pretenders looking to claim the Lantsov throne have been making trouble for Nikolai, as have the other nations in the parem race. The Shu have continued their creating their hybrid soldiers, and the Kerch are cracking down on the debts they are owed. Nikolai, Zoya, and the rest of the Triumvirate are holding down the fort as best they can, all while keeping the King’s secret within the inner circle. For the last 6 months Nikolai and his beastly form have been getting reacquainted. While he maintains his human form by day, by night Nikolai transforms into the monster he became as a result of the Darkling’s powers. Though the Darkling is gone, this remnant of his power remains.

Nikolai’s condition means that he cannot travel, so he must bring foreign representatives to the capital in order to continue Ravka’s time of unstable peace. With the monster gaining strength, Nikolai knows that he must act quickly to secure Ravka’s safety. Nikolai being Nikolai, he decides to host a party as a cover for these diplomatic talks. Zoya also insists that the party will provide a great opportunity for Nikolai to choose a bride. Not long before the party is to take place, the plan threatens to be derailed. More and More pilgrims have gathered outside of the capital’s walls. A new cult has formed, one preaching of the Starless Saint, what they have chosen to call the Darkling. The group believes that the recent string of “miracles” occurring throughout Ravka are an indication that the Darkling is returning. Making the connection between these events and the reawakening of the monster, Nikolai decides to travel to the Fold to investigate, and hopefully to find a cure for his affliction.

At the Fold, Zoya and Nikolai become separated from Tolya and Tamar. As far as the twins can tell the King and his general have up and vanished. In reality, Nikolai and Zoya have “traveled” to a different portion of the Fold, one where the Saints have been trapped for years thanks to the Darkling. The Saints wish to use Nikolai and the monster to escape their prison and be free to live mortal lives. While Nikolai and Zoya begin training with the Saints, Tolya and Tamar travel back to the capital to decide what to do about the upcoming party/ foreign relations meeting. Unsurprising to everyone, Nikolai had prepared for this situation. The Triumvirate works with one of the palace guards Isaak, who will be tailored and trained so that he may stand in as Nikolai until the real King can be located. The risk they are taking is steep, but they must do what they can for Ravka, as their time of unstable peace slips into an era of war.

The King of Scars did not disappoint. The sass-master that is Nikolai Lantsov definitely deserved his own novel. While I began the book knowing that Nikolai wouldn’t disappoint, I can say that I am pleasantly surprised as to how Zoya was highlighted and getting to see the path that her character has taken. We always knew that Zoya was a badass, but in King of Scars we get a glimpse into her background, a peak at her vulnerable side, and hints as to the (even more) powerful Grisha she will become in the future. King of Scars features some of the characters from previous novels, including Genya and David who are now married, Tamar and Nadia who are also now married, Tolya, Adrik, and Nina. The book’s plot is told from the perspectives of Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, and Isaak. You may have noticed that I left out pretty much everything about Nina from my summary. This is because her part had a tendency to be slow, but it was important. I simply felt that if I tried to write a decent summary for her portion of the story that I would end up giving away important spoilers. As for Isaak’s portion, I chose to leave it out because the portions that he is involved in also deal with a lot of spoilers. However, Isaak is a gem and was a great addition to the novel.

While the chapters involving Nina had a tendency to be slow, they didn’t drag enough to bring the rating down from a 5. Nikolai, Zoya, and Isaak’s chapters more than made up for the slower chapters. The ending itself would’ve made up for Nina’s part. The worst part of King of Scars is that I now have to wait who knows how long for the sequel. If you have not read this novel yet you need to. Anyone who enjoyed Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom, or any of the Grishaverse books will devour King of Scars. Then you can join me in banging my head against the wall until the sequel is published.

P.S. Hey Leigh, would a Kaz cameo in the sequel be too much to ask? Just a suggestion!

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biofunmy · 4 years

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LGBTQ Rights Around The World Are In Danger, And The US Is Part Of The Problem

Roma Yandolin / Flickr Vision

Daniil Grachev, an LGBTQ rights activist, is arrested by riot police during a pride event in St. Petersburg, 2013.

My first job at BuzzFeed News in 2013 was something of an experiment: We wanted to cover LGBTQ rights worldwide as seriously as we cover wars or elections.

Over the years that followed, I met LGBTQ refugees who’d fled ISIS in Syria, queer teens who escaped gang violence in El Salvador, and doctors in Japan trying to help win acceptance for transgender people. In retrospect, it seems obvious that these were stories that deserved to be told. But back in 2013, few big media companies had specialist reporters devoted to LGBTQ news in the US, let alone reporters trying to write about the issue around the world.

The US and the world were changing fast. Former president Barack Obama made promoting LGBTQ rights a key priority of US foreign policy during his first term in office, even before he came out in support of marriage equality. In June 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to recognize marriage for same-sex couples. Four days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that became known as the “gay propaganda ban,” and sparked a global outcry.

Nearly 80 countries considered homosexuality a crime when the decade began — anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination were common in many more — and the issue was almost completely ignored in international diplomacy. Now at the decade’s end, more than 30 countries have established marriage equality, transgender people have gained legal protections in several places for the first time, and a social revolution has brought LGBTQ people out of the closet across the globe.

This was the decade when it became clear that “gay rights are human rights,” as then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton said in a 2011 UN speech. But it was also the decade when the very notion that humans have universal rights came under attack. A new generation of antidemocratic leaders — including Clinton’s 2016 opponent, Donald Trump — declared war on the basic human rights framework put in place after World War II. In many cases, these leaders used rapid LGBTQ advances as ammunition to turn citizens against the principles of democracy itself.

Genya Savilov / Getty Images

A masked activist takes part in the first Gay Pride march in Kyiv, 2015.

On my first trip as a reporter for BuzzFeed News, it became crystal clear to me that the fight over LGBTQ rights was about something much bigger.

This was a swing through Eastern Europe in October 2013 to see what impact Russia’s new anti-LGBTQ law was having on its neighbors. The “gay propaganda ban” was technically a law prohibiting teaching children about “nontraditional relationships,” but it became a tool to intimidate activist groups and suppress any demonstration of LGBTQ rights. It also helped make anti-gay sentiment a tool of Russian foreign policy the world is still struggling with today.

My trip ended in Ukraine, which was on the verge of signing a deal to formalize ties with the European Union. The deal would have required Ukraine to accept a broad suite of human rights protections, one of which was prohibiting employment discrimination against gays and lesbians. Putin and his allies wanted to derail a Ukraine–EU alliance at all costs.

The streets of the capital, Kyiv, were plastered with billboards that said things like “Association with the EU means same-sex marriage.”

These billboards were funded by a Ukrainian businessperson with such close ties to Putin that he made the Russian president godfather to his daughter. The claim that the EU treaty would force Ukraine to recognize marriage for same-sex couples was a lie, but it was a useful distortion. Anti-gay sentiment was the perfect way to trigger broad fear among Ukrainians that the human rights norms of Western democracies would strip the country of its identity.

“The EU will require Ukraine to expand its gay culture, and, instead of Victory Parades, gay parades will be held in Kyiv,” one top Russian lawmaker tweeted as the EU treaty signing approached.

By year’s end, the tug of war over Ukraine had ripped the country in two. When the country’s president bowed to Russian pressure and tried to walk away from the EU deal, a pro-European revolution drove him from office. In response, Russian-backed soldiers invaded and annexed one part of the country and fomented a war that still grinds on today. Across the internet in those days, propaganda sites pumped out all manner of stories claiming Russia had stepped in to protect Ukrainians from a “totalitarian” West.

Josh Edelson / Getty Images

Stuart Gaffney (left) and John Lewis (center), plaintiffs in the 2008 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case, celebrate while traveling along Market Street during San Francisco Pride Pride, two days after the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling legalizing marriage for same-sex couples nationwide, June 28, 2015.

At the same time, Russia was scrambling to pry Ukraine away from the EU, it was making preparations to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi. This provided the perfect platform for Putin to use anti-gay sentiment to attack the credibility of countries that claimed to champion human rights. The lead-up to the games was dominated in the West by boycotts from activist groups in protest of Russia’s “gay propaganda” law; Obama lent his support to the campaign by skipping the opening ceremony in February 2014.

Putin treated this conflict as an opportunity. If countries like the US wanted to define human rights policies by supporting LGBTQ rights, he was all too happy to lead the counterattack on behalf of “traditional values.”

In one chilling incident, Russian state television broadcast a secretly recorded meeting between Russian activists and international NGOs like Human Rights Watch as part of a “documentary” warning of a “homosexualist invasion.” The Russian government also used this as an excuse to step up attacks on civil society, forcing LGBTQ rights organizations to identify themselves as “foreign agents” under a law also used against environmentalists and other human rights NGOs.

Over the years that followed, I covered one authoritarian regime after another that used anti-gay sentiment to discredit human rights advocates and Western democracies.

In Uganda, I sat through a five-hour “thanksgiving ceremony” in March 2014 after the country passed a sweeping anti-LGBTQ law, during which President Yoweri Museveni said anal sex caused the intestines to fall out and vowed to reject US money to fight HIV if it meant accepting “foreign things.” As in Russia, the Ugandan government stirred up panic about homosexuality to make it harder for NGOs to operate. Police restricted the operations of Uganda’s largest NGO, a refugee rights organization that also was part of a coalition fighting the anti-LGBTQ law, for allegedly “promoting homosexuality and lesbianism.” Authorities even raided an HIV center run by the US military.

Isaac Kasamani / Getty Images

A Ugandan man takes part in a pride event in Entebbe.

Assaults on LGBTQ rights — as well as moves against women’s rights and refugees — were increasingly at the center of geopolitical conflicts. Later in 2014, ISIS started promoting gruesome execution images of men it said were gay in an effort to portray itself as defending Islam against Western debauchery. In 2016, Turkey banned Istanbul Pride ceremonies — the largest Pride regularly celebrated in the Muslim world. The banishment coincided with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s broader crackdown on public protest and free speech. Inside the EU, pride parades were attacked in Poland, which is led by a far-right government.

Anti-LGBTQ crackdowns predate this decade, of course — few in the last 10 years even made headlines outside their home countries. But never before did showdowns over anti-LGBTQ rights regularly rise to the highest levels of the world’s most powerful governments and institutions.

What might have once been local conflicts turned into diplomatic incidents. The World Bank responded to Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ law by suspending a $90 million loan; the UN Security Council responded to ISIS’s executions by holding its first-ever discussion on an LGBTQ rights issue; and an alliance led by five South American nations succeeded in pushing through a UN resolution to create an LGBTQ rights officer position, defeating an opposition that included Russia and blocs of African and Islamic countries.

Conservative nations, with help from the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, were simultaneously working to strike the word “gender” from other UN resolutions, believing the term opened the door to greater LGBTQ and women’s rights protections under international law. Anti-LGBTQ countries have also attempted to water down resolutions for other human rights issues by inserting language affirming “sovereignty,” a term that suggests local values or interests trump universal rights claims.

But as with women’s rights in the 1990s, despite opposition, LGBTQ rights in the 2010s were well on their way to becoming a core part of the international human rights system by the end of the Obama administration. Obama even created the world’s first special envoy for LGBTQ rights in the State Department and issued rules to prevent recipients of US foreign aid from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

As he prepared to leave the White House, it seemed as if the world’s most powerful democratic governments would continue to look for ways to respond to threats to LGBTQ rights around the world.

And then Clinton, with help from Russia’s disinformation machine, lost the 2016 election to Trump.

Isaac Kasamani / Getty Images

Ugandans march in an anti-gay protest in 2014.

If Clinton’s 2011 “gay rights are human rights” speech represented what the decade promised in the beginning, Trump represents what the decade became in the end.

When the Trump administration talks about LGBTQ rights today, it comes across as gaslighting. He makes occasional noises about protecting LGBTQ people, but he also rolled back several protections for transgender people and had his Justice Department argue it should be legal to fire people for being gay. During his 2016 campaign, Trump copied a tactic of anti-immigrant politicians in countries like France and the Netherlands, using the issue exclusively as a justification to attack the rights of another minority. The best way to protect “the gays,” Trump said at the time, was to ban Muslims from entering the US.

As for other human rights, Trump has put immigrant children in cages along the southern border, denied asylum-seekers their rights under the Geneva Conventions, and turned a blind eye to the murder of a Saudi journalist in order to preserve lucrative weapons contracts. In a recent speech at the UN, he called for the repeal of sodomy laws but also called NGOs that work with immigrants “cruel and evil.”

While the US has not overtly renounced support for LGBTQ rights in international diplomacy, some human rights activists worry that day could still be coming. The White House was silent when news broke in 2017 that police in the Russian republic of Chechnya had kidnapped and tortured more than 100 LGBTQ people. Trump’s current secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has called homosexuality a “perversion” and said during his confirmation that he still opposes marriage equality. Pompeo recently convened a new commission tasked with reining in a human rights regime he said had been “hijacked.”

Sopa Images / Getty Images

People defying the ban on Istanbul Pride in 2019.

“Rights claims are often aimed more at rewarding interest groups and dividing humanity into subgroups,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing the commission.

The language used to describe the commission’s mission is “clearly code to not include gay rights and reproductive rights,” Mark Bromley, who leads the LGBTQ rights group the Council for Global Equality, told me earlier this month.

The US is not the only powerful government that has abandoned clear support for LGBTQ rights. Brazil, long a world leader the issue, has retreated under its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who once said he’d rather his son were dead than gay and blasted a recent Supreme Court decision criminalizing LGBTQ discrimination. In nearly every country that has slid toward greater authoritarianism — including Hungary, Poland, China, and the US — LGBTQ rights have been a casualty.

This turn away by many governments has not erased the gains made, thanks to growing support at the grassroots. Australians defied their right-leaning government in 2017 to overwhelmingly approve a referendum to institute marriage equality. India’s Supreme Court issued a sweeping ruling in 2018 to decriminalize homosexuality at a time when the country’s president is a religious fundamentalist. And two more African countries, Angola and Botswana, decriminalized homosexuality this year.

“Once you have a taste that a better world is possible, you do not want to go back,” said Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International, which works with activists around the world and advocates for LGBTQ rights at the UN.

But it is growing even more dangerous in some places to demand rights, and activists can’t count on solidarity from the US the way they could just a few years ago.

“In this environment, there are fewer powerful states that we can count on, and there are more powerful states that are hostile to LGBTIQ rights,” Stern recently told me. “Russia, with its influence across the Middle East, China, and its influence everywhere.” It’s not just that the US is a “shadow of its former self” when it comes to defending human rights, she added — it’s now part of the problem.

“I am very worried about the next decade,” Stern said. “Every time I open my email or turn on my phone, someone I know personally is under attack.”●

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booksareawayoflife · 7 years

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Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

‘The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impenetrable darkness, is slowly destroying the once-great nation of Ravka. Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the world of the kingdom’s magical elite – the Grisha. Could she be the key to setting Ravka free? The Darkling, a man of seductive charm and terrifying power. If Alina is to fulfil her destiny, she must unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him. But what of Mal, Alina’s childhood best friend? As Alina contemplates her dazzling new future, why can’t she ever quite forget him?’

Book Review: *Spoiler Alert* I picked this book up because I was finally in a young adult fantasy mood! The Diabolic and A Whole New World got me out of any sort of fantasy mood, because they were both drags in the majority of places. Because it took me about 5 days to read The Cuckoo’s Calling I finally wanted to read this book and this series! I’ve been wanting to read this series for about 3 months, and I finally got round to it. And I am glad that I did read it because it was quite good. It met my expectations (which weren’t that high but it was higher than average).

I want to talk about the problems about this book that I encountered before I talk about the good things that I liked about it because the problems weren’t that bad and I would rather it get out of the way. The main problem I had was that I felt like the world was a bit underdeveloped. I think the book could have easily done with another 100 or 150 or so pages, extending scenes and make us connect more with Alina, Mal and the Darkling. So whilst I did connect with Alina almost instantaneously, it took me about 250 pages to like Mal and I never really did like the Darkling. I wished that Alina had spent more time with the Darkling so the twist would have been more surprising, as opposed to it being anticipated. In addition, there was not that many detailed descriptions of landscapes and scenery. I would have liked a bit more description, but I am a plot based reader, and the plot in this book was good. Also, the words that were placed in the book weren’t explained, and you would have to guess or deduce what they would mean. It disrupted my reading because I would try and understand what they meant within their context, because I want to know what it would mean. So you can see that my problems aren’t that bad. Wanting more can be seen as a good thing, because it means that I didn’t get enough haha.

The plot was good. Some of the twists were obvious though, but the ones that weren’t were really good. Especially if you are going to name someone the Darkling haha. I did kinda wish that the name was a twist itself and that the darkling was going to provide light, and be good. The reveal of Alina’s powers were obvious. I knew that it was coming, when it did. I knew that it was only a matter of pages before she would inadvertently reveal her powers. The goodbye between Alina and Mal made my eyes water. It was so emotional, it would have broken me if it was the final goodbye. I also liked the ending. But it leaves the reader wondering where the author would take it next, because it could be seen at the end, and not just the end of book 1. But I enjoyed the plot a lot.

I did like Alina as the narrator, which I feel like it is rare for me to like narrators of YA fantasy, but I’ve been reading a lot of young adult fantasy, and liking the narrators so maybe Mare from Red Queen and Tris from Divergent just made me feel like I didn’t like those narrators a lot. She was very relatable, especially when she was dealing with her feelings for Mal in the beginning. Then, with her dealing with being homesick, and Mal not replying to her letters. It just all made me want to hug her. Also, when she was getting the affections of the Darkling. She liked being sort after, but then she had to think about whether she actually wanted to be with him. She was also quite funny, when she doesn’t mean to be. I appreciated that when she was basically thrown into the lap of luxury, that she didn’t lose her values. I loved the fact that Alina was willing to face ridicule by hanging out with Genya, because Alina liked Genya, and thought of her as her friend. I did also feel that Alina did the right thing in letting Mal go when they bumped into each other in the palace. It made his reappearance better, because he went after her despite what he said. It shows that he loves her.

Mal. I liked Mal as a kid, when he was playing with Alina in the orphanage. I didn’t like him when we meet him as an adult. I think it’s because I thought that Alina could be with someone that she deserves. I don’t like playboy characters. But I eventually grew to like him by the end of the book and I shipped them. I’m not all that crazy about their relationship, but we will see by the end of the series just how much I support Mal and Alina. The extra content of Mal’s unsent letter made me like him more too. It gave us an insight of his feelings and you can see that he loves her.

Genya. I liked her. I liked how she was more than Alina’s tailor, and that she became her friend. I also liked how she loved someone who was not that high on the social classes of Grisha. It made her seem more human. I hope that she and Alina meet again and they still are girlfriends. I ship their friendship.

Darkling. I didn’t trust him from the beginning. I mean his name has bad connotations, but I did hope that he would be good. But then he would basically thrust himself onto Alina without warning, and I would be like… you don’t even know if she likes you mate and you’re kissing her and asking to accompany her to her bedroom. Like mate, chill. Then he was the bad guy all along and I was like yesss. He was creepy.

I give this book a 8/10 or a 4/5. I read it within 12 hours. I stayed up until 3am to read it, and that speaks volumes because I am so busy with coursework. I would recommend this to fans of young adult fantasy, or tropes with powers. If you like Red Queen, you would probably like this series more. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. It has so much potential, and I really hope that it is just as good as this book.

Love Lou xx

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